1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a digital still camera (inclusive of a portable electronic device such as a mobile telephone having a camera function) and to a method of controlling the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
In digital still cameras that employ a solid-state electronic image sensing device, unwanted electric charge that has accumulated in a vertical transfer path is swept out before signal charge that has accumulated in photodiodes is shifted to the vertical transfer path (this is so-called “smear sweep”). If the camera has been set to a high-sensitivity image sensing mode, there are occasions where sweep-out of unwanted charge is halted (see the specification of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-172925).
However, even in modes other than a high-sensitivity image sensing mode, there are also cases where the image quality of the image of the subject obtained is not much affected even if processing for sweeping out unwanted charge is halted. In such cases, transferring the signal charge that has accumulated in the photodiodes without sweeping out the unwanted charge is better in that the signal charge can be read out at higher speed.